MBTA Buses & Infrastructure

MBTA BetterBus PROPOSALS ARE HERE!


Pick any route in blue and see what they propose, then scroll down and click "Give Us Feedback"

After commenting on a route that has an official proposal, you can also name a route and give your own ideas.

So far, I've supported redirecting the 95's "dangling end" near Winchester in favor of sending it to Arlington Center (please support if you believe in Square-to-Square routing for buses)
https://betterbus.mbta.com/route-95

Separately, I have promoted Joel N. Weber II's idea of re-routing the 79 & 350 to Davis (had to free-form that one in the comments)


Also kinda cool:

dropping Malden Center Terminations for routes that already have a connection at Oak Grove (136,137), so as to "fund" more frequent Oak Grove to Reading runs.

dropping Assembly & Wellington from the 92 (it will now just shuttle more frequently Sullivan to Haymarket via Charlestown)

dropping the Wellington End of the 90 so that it becomes the Somerville-Assembly shuttle.​
 
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I liked the Cambridge-side changes to the 64, the varying routing confuses people. And the better service is welcome.

Eliminating the jog it makes in Brighton may not save the time they are thinking because of the way traffic backs up on Brooks St, and commented as such.

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Not a set of buses I ride, but I really liked seeing what they came up with for the 72/74/75, it looks to make the system much more sensible.
 
millerm277 said:
I liked the Cambridge-side changes to the 64, the varying routing confuses people. And the better service is welcome.

Eliminating the jog it makes in Brighton may not save the time they are thinking because of the way traffic backs up on Brooks St, and commented as such.
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I'm a bit torn about the 64. Obviously I like sending all 64 buses to Kendall Square, but I'm not so sure about routing it away from Broadway. The 64 accounts for I think 75% of the bus capacity on Broadway (the remainder being a single 68 bus pinging back and forth between Harvard and Kendall). As a former Central Square/Mid-Cambridge resident, I want to see Broadway bus frequency bolstered, not cut to shreds. There is good residential density on the corridor and a smattering of small-format local retail.

I generally support clustering buses into transit corridors, which seems to support the Mass/Main reroute, but I think Mass Ave has plenty of bus service already. Broadway can/should be a secondary parallel corridor with increased frequencies on the 64 and 68 supporting primarily local/intra-Cambridge trips.
 
fattony said:
I'm a bit torn about the 64. Obviously I like sending all 64 buses to Kendall Square, but I'm not so sure about routing it away from Broadway. The 64 accounts for I think 75% of the bus capacity on Broadway (the remainder being a single 68 bus pinging back and forth between Harvard and Kendall). As a former Central Square/Mid-Cambridge resident, I want to see Broadway bus frequency bolstered, not cut to shreds. There is good residential density on the corridor and a smattering of small-format local retail.

I generally support clustering buses into transit corridors, which seems to support the Mass/Main reroute, but I think Mass Ave has plenty of bus service already. Broadway can/should be a secondary parallel corridor with increased frequencies on the 64 and 68 supporting primarily local/intra-Cambridge trips.
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There are no buses that run on Main Street in Cambridge (west of Vassar Street), and it could certainly use some. Plus, geometrically simplifying the route has a lot of positives.

I completely agree that the Broadway corridor is totally underserved by buses – but adding another 68 seems like a straightforward solution there.

Although as a partial counter to the streamlining approach, I'm still wondering how there's no bus service between Assembly and most of Cambridge. F-line says that wholesale route modification isn't on the table until bus yards get augmented, but man, a route 91.5 from Central to Assembly via Union would be great. I haven't been to Assembly since moving to Cambridge because it's always just slightly too frustrating to get to (by transit/bike).
 
They are streamlining the 90 to run Davis to Assembly (having it slip past Sullivan Square instead of running through it, and increasing frequency by not trying to get to Wellington).
https://betterbus.mbta.com/route-90

This could make a pretty decent option for the parts of Cambridge that are close to Davis.

My guess is that the rest of Cambridge is doing okay accessing retail at the CambridgeSide galleria, or in Harvard Square, or in using the trader Joe's in Cambridgeport. Or if they really need to get to Assembly, they will somehow use the orange.

A well-functioning 90 goes right down the spine of Somerville and takes everybody to Assembly.
 
Arlington said:
They are streamlining the 90 to run Davis to Assembly (having it slip past Sullivan Square instead of running through it, and increasing frequency by not trying to get to Wellington).
https://betterbus.mbta.com/route-90

This could make a pretty decent option for the parts of Cambridge that are close to Davis.

My guess is that the rest of Cambridge is doing okay accessing retail at the CambridgeSide galleria, or in Harvard Square, or in using the trader Joe's in Cambridgeport. Or if they really need to get to Assembly, they will somehow use the orange.

A well-functioning 90 goes right down the spine of Somerville and takes everybody to Assembly.
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This is quite the tradeoff though.

"About a 7-minute walk for 378 (39%) riders to Sullivan Square"
 
jass said:
This is quite the tradeoff though.

"About a 7-minute walk for 378 (39%) riders to Sullivan Square"
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Yeah, I could see this being worth considering in 3 years, after GLX turns most 90+OL riders into GL riders, but right now it only makes the route worse.
 
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fattony said:
I'm a bit torn about the 64. Obviously I like sending all 64 buses to Kendall Square, but I'm not so sure about routing it away from Broadway. The 64 accounts for I think 75% of the bus capacity on Broadway (the remainder being a single 68 bus pinging back and forth between Harvard and Kendall). As a former Central Square/Mid-Cambridge resident, I want to see Broadway bus frequency bolstered, not cut to shreds. There is good residential density on the corridor and a smattering of small-format local retail.

I generally support clustering buses into transit corridors, which seems to support the Mass/Main reroute, but I think Mass Ave has plenty of bus service already. Broadway can/should be a secondary parallel corridor with increased frequencies on the 64 and 68 supporting primarily local/intra-Cambridge trips.
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I think it's worth asking yourself, "what does this bus do and who does this bus serve?" rather than liking more buses running down a line on a map, regardless of what they're accomplishing.

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The 64 does not, at present, serve any significant local ridership within Cambridge, as shown on page 4-5 of the route profile, and what little there is is primarily right over the bridge at the river. The vast majority of ridership of the 64 is going between Allston/Brighton and Cambridge. That is the trips it serves, not intra-Cambridge.

It may run on Broadway at times, but it doesn't really enable some particularly unique or useful trip on it. Other than the exact furthest spot (Windsor/Columbia cross streets), most of it is within a half-mile of Kendall or Central.

Unless we're talking very high frequencies that are not likely, I'm skeptical that many people would wait for the bus to make a transfer there rather than just walking that distance to the Red Line stations. And we already know that people largely do not board on that stretch to ride to Allston/Brighton from the previously mentioned route profile.

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On the topic of the 68, it puts up poor ridership numbers even for it's limited operations and is one of the least used routes in the entire bus system. It's often talked about how the MBTA has a large number of overlapping and duplicative services that result in poor frequencies and confusing services. Not every road has to have a bus route on it even if it is a big road that goes somewhere.

At no point going through Central/Mid-Cambridge are Mass Ave (#1 Bus + Red Line) + Cambridge St (#69 bus) more than 3/4ths of a mile apart. I do not believe anywhere on Broadway is more than a half-mile walk to one of the two.

Does it really justify having some route splitting it down the middle at all or would those buses be better deployed to bolster #69/#1 bus frequencies?
 
millerm277 said:
I think it's worth asking yourself, "what does this bus do and who does this bus serve?" rather than liking more buses running down a line on a map, regardless of what they're accomplishing.

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The 64 does not, at present, serve any significant local ridership within Cambridge, as shown on page 4-5 of the route profile, and what little there is is primarily right over the bridge at the river. The vast majority of ridership of the 64 is going between Allston/Brighton and Cambridge. That is the trips it serves, not intra-Cambridge.

It may run on Broadway at times, but it doesn't really enable some particularly unique or useful trip on it. Other than the exact furthest spot (Windsor/Columbia cross streets), most of it is within a half-mile of Kendall or Central.

Unless we're talking very high frequencies that are not likely, I'm skeptical that many people would wait for the bus to make a transfer there rather than just walking that distance to the Red Line stations. And we already know that people largely do not board on that stretch to ride to Allston/Brighton from the previously mentioned route profile.

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On the topic of the 68, it puts up poor ridership numbers even for it's limited operations and is one of the least used routes in the entire bus system. It's often talked about how the MBTA has a large number of overlapping and duplicative services that result in poor frequencies and confusing services. Not every road has to have a bus route on it even if it is a big road that goes somewhere.

At no point going through Central/Mid-Cambridge are Mass Ave (#1 Bus + Red Line) + Cambridge St (#69 bus) more than 3/4ths of a mile apart. I do not believe anywhere on Broadway is more than a half-mile walk to one of the two.

Does it really justify having some route splitting it down the middle at all or would those buses be better deployed to bolster #69/#1 bus frequencies?
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These are all good points that I cannot refute. I guess it’s a bit of a chicken/egg situation. The 64 is designed and operated as a commuter route - mostly feeding the red line at central with some peak period thru service to Kendall. The 68 is designed exclusively for coverage and doesn’t really serve anyone well.

Significantly higher frequency on both would/could unlock ridership growth on the corridor. But if the whole transportation system is designed around peak commuting and past performance is considered the only indicator of future growth, then yes the 64 will double-down on commuters and the 68 is doomed.

That may well be for the best, like I said, i cannot refute your points. As a resident of the area, I really wanted to be able to hop a bus to run local errands efficiently, but the network just isn’t designed for that. So I walked a lot and took my car more often than I would have liked.
 
fattony said:
These are all good points that I cannot refute. I guess it’s a bit of a chicken/egg situation. The 64 is designed and operated as a commuter route - mostly feeding the red line at central with some peak period thru service to Kendall. The 68 is designed exclusively for coverage and doesn’t really serve anyone well.

Significantly higher frequency on both would/could unlock ridership growth on the corridor. But if the whole transportation system is designed around peak commuting and past performance is considered the only indicator of future growth, then yes the 64 will double-down on commuters and the 68 is doomed.

That may well be for the best, like I said, i cannot refute your points. As a resident of the area, I really wanted to be able to hop a bus to run local errands efficiently, but the network just isn’t designed for that. So I walked a lot and took my car more often than I would have liked.
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Right – the 68 is basically every 40 minutes from 6:30am to 7pm, and not on weekends. Of course no one with other options is going to plan for that – they'll walk, bike, or call an Uber instead (and indeed, the route description shows that most riders are transit-dependent). If it were 20- or 15-minute headways, until 10pm at least, then we're approaching a reasonable level of utility.

I'm not opposed to streamlining some service routes if others nearby are beefed up. But those nearby routes often don't exist, either. For instance, there is no route connecting Inman Square to Kendall. We need as many connections as we can get to (the ever-growing) Kendall Square job hub.

How about 15-minute service on Beacon/Hampshire, from Porter to Kendall? The massive number of people biking on this route shows how much demand there is for transportation from the (relatively) dense housing of Somerville to the dense jobs in Kendall.

millerm277 said:
I think it's worth asking yourself, "what does this bus do and who does this bus serve?" rather than liking more buses running down a line on a map, regardless of what they're accomplishing.
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I'm glad you bring this up, as I think it shows a core problem with transit planning & general urban planning in the Boston area. "Line on a map" is the most efficient route between two places. These are the routes that we need to be building up – for bus service, yes, but even more so for residential and commercial uses. Hampshire Street, for instance, is a massively transited spine directly connected to one of the biggest employment centers in the country. It should be filled with shops, offices, restaurants, and dense housing. Instead it's medium-dense housing with little nodes of a restaurant and office or two every mile or so. These inefficiencies force people to live farther away from where they work and to drive to get groceries two miles away when there should be a grocer within a few blocks. That's not going to cut it if we're serious about building a better, more resilient Boston.

And regarding general transit geometry: San Francisco moved to a fully grid-based bus system with good frequencies after moving Muni Metro underground downtown in the 70s, and the result is one of the best-used bus systems in the US. (Bus-bus transfers are easy and actually common there; not very attractive transferring from a 40-min headway route to a 55-min headway route on the MBTA.) There are too many gaps in our region thanks to poor connectivity (and other factors, of course). Let's create a bus network that finally supports dense development away from the rail lines.
 
I moved from Boston to SF two years ago, and went from never making bus-bus transfers (and avoiding rail-bus when possible) to making them constantly without thought. SF frequencies are so much higher than Boston - the big trunk lines mostly have 5-minute frequencies (or 10 local + 10 rapid, etc) at rush, and not much worse during midday and evening. And, there's a positive side effect to those frequencies: if one route is disrupted, there's usually an almost-as-good route that you can take. If I'm headed to the gym and the 22-Fillmore has a long wait, I can go one more stop on Muni Metro and take a 14, 49, or 9 with a slightly longer walk at the end. In Boston, you'd still end up waiting 20+ minutes for the alternate route.
 
It hasn't been brought up among the other proposals, but I love what they are proposing for the 455 and 459 bus routes. They are essentially combining them, by removing the 459, and having the 455 run more frequently.

The 455 running more consistently, frequently, and with a regular bus fare, is a good (small) step towards improving transit to the North Shore. It's interesting to note that this route is essentially the Blue Line Extension route. Here's to hoping that the increased ridership in the 455 to Wonderland is a step towards the T revisiting the BLX to Lynn.
 
I'm going to push back on the elimination of the Clarendon Hill branch of the 90. My wife uses it to get to work, and next year my son may be using it to get to school.
 
ceo said:
I'm going to push back on the elimination of the Clarendon Hill branch of the 90. My wife uses it to get to work, and next year my son may be using it to get to school.
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I'm assuming you mean 89. And I think the logic is that during peak hours there's enough Clarendon to Davis buses that a frequent 87/88 to Davis followed by a frequent 89 won't produce substantially lower quality service than an infrequent 89 from Clarendon.
 
Clarendon Hill as a terminus is an artifact of it having been a steetcar yard at a city boundary.

As we reform our buses to run on the diagonals between "hubs," places like Clarendon Hill would ideally see their service sent outward to the next hub (Arlington Center in this case), but sometimes cut back to the last hub inward (Davis Sq, as they propose for the 89).

(What's really going to mess up the 89 and 80 is the 18 month closure of the Broadway Bridge over the GLX. Everybody should be making alternate plans now.)

I like the change in the 95 as fitting this "don't dangle the ends" rule. The 95 is really a streetcar through the Fells being turned back short. It should have either been sent to Winchester, turned back at Medford Square, or what they chose which is to send it to turn at Arlington center.
 
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Arlington said:
I like the change in the 95 as fitting this "don't dangle the ends" rule. The 95 is really a streetcar through the Fells being turned back short. It should have either been sent to Winchester, turned back at Medford Square, or what they chose which is to send it to turn at Arlington center.
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No Route 60 (MA-60) bus service connecting squares always struck me as a missed opportunity for connectivity. This change is a step in the right direction on that front.

Malden Center <-> Medford Square <-> West Medford <-> Arlington Center <-> Belmont Center <-> Waverley Square <-> Downtown Waltham

Each of these steps has a different bus, or no bus, connecting them. For circumferential travel, one needs to go in to go back out.

With the reroute of the 95, at least Medford Square <-> West Medford <-> Arlington Center will be served by one bus route.

I'd like to see more of this treatment. Either creating more circumferential bus routes (ie Waltham to Malden Center via route 60), or extending bus routes to fill in these gaps (ie extend the 80 to Belmont Center, extend the 74 to Waverley Square, etc).
 
Arlington said:
The 95 is really a streetcar through the Fells being turned back short.
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Highly agree with everything you've been saying, but one small correction on this. What is now the 95 (formerly the 83) was a Sullivan-West Medford streetcar line; the extension on Playstead doesn't seem to have been added until it was bustituted in the 1930s. The 134 is the successor to the Eastern Mass Street Railway Medford-Woburn line. So while this change does break the theoretical West Medford-Winchester route (with transfer at Playstead & Winthrop), that corridor will probably be better served with the post-GLX bus realignment.
 
The bus depot adds a lot of time for through routed buses. Maybe they are moving in the direction of only having terminating routes use the depot, shaving a few minutes off the schedule for the others. Or perhaps it's just through routed buses that do not have a significant ridership share board/deboard at Ruggles that will skip the depot.
 
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